04
Jun
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President Obama Proposes Patent Troll Laws That Will Probably Do Very Little To Stop Most Patent Trolling

Posted by in Legal, News

Patent trolling is far from a divisive issue in the United States. Pretty much everyone but the trolls can agree that patent trolling is damaging to the economy, and generally kind of a dick move. Patent trolling, if you're not familiar with the practice, is quite simple in concept: buy patents, extort licensing fees from alleged infringers, and sue if they refuse to comply. President Obama proposed some "major" changes to US law that will supposedly reduce the effectiveness of such companies. Before we look at those, though, let's look briefly at what makes a troll tick.

(And no, Apple is not a 'patent troll.' This has basically nothing to do with Apple.

01
Sep
Samsung-Galaxy-S-III-UK-preorder

Yes, Apple Is Accusing The Galaxy S III Of Infringing Its Patents, No, This Is Not Surprising Or Really All That Important

Posted by in Legal, News

Have you heard?! Apple now says the Galaxy S III is infringing on its patents. Woe is us!

Except, this is a.) completely unsurprising, and b.) not really important in the grand scheme of things. Yesterday, Reuters reported that Apple had tacked on the Galaxy S III (including the Verizon version specifically, for whatever reason), the Note 10.1, and the original Galaxy Note to its upcoming California lawsuit against Samsung. And yes, they'll probably add the Galaxy Note II just as soon as Samsung gets around to releasing it here in the US.

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But, innovation! Thermonuclear war! The Galaxy S III was designed around avoiding Apple patents, right?

17
Aug
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Google's Motorola Files New Lawsuit Against Apple At The ITC, Seeks Import Bans On Pretty Much Everything Apple Makes

Posted by in Android OS, Legal, Motorola, News

According to Bloomberg, Motorola Mobility has just filed a new lawsuit against Apple at the ITC. Now, ordinarily, we might not report on the filing of such a suit - especially when the complaint hasn't been made public (we have basically zero details). What makes this particular filing important, though, is that it is the first lawsuit filed by Motorola now that it is officially, 100% a part of Google. That's a big deal.

It means Google signed off on this action. It means Google isn't interested in playing a purely defensive role in the mobile patent wars. And while this is sort of by proxy (MMI is in many senses separate from Google), the fact that Motorola filed this suit at all says a lot.

27
Jul
iphone4-vs-galaxy-s-head

A Complete Overview Of The Apple v. Samsung Trial: Things Aren't Looking Great For Android's Biggest Manufacturer

Posted by in Android OS, Legal, News, Samsung
Last Updated: July 30th, 2012

With Samsung and Apple's California trial scheduled for Monday, more and more information is being unearthed about the parties' respective claims. Yesterday, though, AllThingsD parsed out a few pieces of evidence from an unedited version of Apple's filing (not publicly available) that look quite bad for Samsung. I'll just quote them as they appear, because they really don't need much context:

  • In February 2010, Google told Samsung that Samsung’s “P1” and “P3” tablets (Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 10.1) were “too similar” to the iPad and demanded “distinguishable design vis-à-vis the iPad for the P3.”
  • In 2011, Samsung’s own Product Design Group noted that it is “regrettable” that the Galaxy S “looks similar” to older iPhone models.

02
Nov
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Patent Trolls: What Is Lodsys Actually Asking App Developers To Pay? You Might Be Surprised

Posted by in Android OS, Editorials, Legal

OK, before I even get into this post, let me be clear: this is based on old news. However, it was news that no one seemed to pick up at the time, and when we discovered it, we thought it was quite interesting.

If you're unfamiliar with Lodsys, let's start with a history lesson. They're better known as the shell corporation offspring of a company called Intellectual Ventures LLC, a patent clearinghouse owned by a group of, shall we say, enterprising individuals. Their purpose? Buy as many viable tech patents as possible, and force major corporations into licensing (paying royalties) deals when infringement on any of these patents, which is actively searched for, is discovered.